System for Digital Yearbook Delivery with Multi-Media Data

1. A system for providing a customized digital yearbook to a user comprising: a server; a personal computer connected to the server through a network; a user device designed to present media content on a display; a database operationally coupled to the server; a first software module running on the server receives yearbook data from the personal computer through the network and stores the yearbook data in the database; a second software module extracts approved yearbook data, the approved yearbook data being a subset of the yearbook data from the yearbook data, that is approved for distribution in the customized digital yearbook; a third software module further filters the approved yearbook data by selecting custom yearbook data therefrom according to directives in a view by user file into a custom yearbook view and the third software module saves the custom yearbook view in non-volatile storage as a custom yearbook file, whereas the view by user file is maintained by the user; and a means for presenting the custom yearbook file data on a display by the user device.

2. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 1 , wherein the second software module runs on the server and the custom yearbook file is transferred to the user device before being presented by the means for presenting

3. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 1 , wherein the third second software module runs on the user device and the approved yearbook data is transferred to the user device before the third software module runs on the user device and before the custom yearbook file is presented by the means for presenting

4. The system for providing a digital yearbook of claim 2 , wherein the third software module saves the approved yearbook data to a storage media and the means for presenting the custom yearbook file reads the custom yearbook file from the storage media and presents the custom yearbook view on the display at the user device

5. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 4 , wherein the storage media is selected from the group consisting of digital optical media, analog optical media, magnetic media and flash memory.

6. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 4 , further comprising a fourth software module running on the user device, the fourth software module reads the approved yearbook data from the storage media, accesses external data, merges the external data with the approved yearbook data from the storage media into the customized yearbook view data and presents the customized yearbook view data through a user interface

7. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 6 , wherein the external data includes Internet links to content

8. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 6 , wherein the external content is selected from the group consisting of music, video, news and advertisements.

9. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 3 , wherein the second software module delivers the approved yearbook data to the user device over the network and the third software module further filters the approved yearbook data by selecting custom yearbook data therefrom according to directives in a view by user file maintained by the user into a custom yearbook view and the third software module saves the custom yearbook view in non-volatile storage as a custom yearbook file at the user device.

10. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 9 , further comprising a fifth software module running on the user device, the fifth third software module reads the custom yearbook file, accesses external data, merges the external data with the custom yearbook file, and presents the external data merged with the custom yearbook file through a user interface.

11. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 10 , wherein the external data is selected from the group consisting of music, video, news and advertisements.

12. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 1 , wherein the user device is selected from a group consisting of a personal computer, a cellular phone, a networked video player, a networked television, a television with integrated optical disk player and an electronic book.

13. The system for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 3 , wherein the second software module saves the approved yearbook data to a storage media and the third software module, using the view by user file, extracts the custom yearbook file from the approved yearbook data that is on the storage media and the means for presenting the subset of the yearbook data presents the custom yearbook file at the user device.

14. A method for providing a customized digital yearbook comprising: capturing content for a yearbook into a database; editing and organizing the content within the database; wherein editing and organizing the content includes determining approved content, the approved content being a subset of the content that is approved for distribution in the customized digital yearbook; determining what portions of the approved content are selected for inclusion in the customized digital yearbook by a user based on directives included within a view by user file, wherein the view by user file is maintained by the user; creating customized data from the database by selecting data therefrom based on the directives in the view by user file of a particular user; and presenting the customized data at a device associated with the particular user.

15. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 14 , further comprising the step of delivering the customized data to the device associated with the particular user.

16. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 14 , further comprising the step of delivering the content to the device associated with the particular user and wherein the step of creating the customized data is performed by the device associated with the particular user.

17. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 14 , further comprising integrating external data with the customized data at the device associated with the particular user.

18. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 17 , wherein the customized data includes Internet links to the external data content.

19. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 17 , wherein the external content is selected from the group consisting of music, video, news and advertisements.

20. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 14 , wherein the device associated with the particular user is selected from the group consisting of a personal computer, a cellular phone, a media player, a networked media player and an e-book.

21. A method for providing a customized digital yearbook, the method performed by a computer having computer-executable instructions stored on non-transitory computer-readable media, the non-transitory computer-readable media interfaced to a computer, the computer executing the computer-executable instructions to implement the method comprising the steps of: capturing content for a yearbook; storing the content in a database; editing and organizing the content within the database under control of an administrator; wherein editing and organizing the content includes determining approved content, the approved content being a subset of the content that is approved for distribution in the customized digital yearbook; determining what portions of the approved content are selected by a user for inclusion in the customized digital yearbook based on directives included within a view by user file, wherein the view by user file is maintained by the user; creating customized data from the database by selecting data therefrom based on the directives in the view by user file of a particular user delivering the customized data to a device associated with the particular user; and presenting the customized data at the device.

22. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 21 , further comprising integrating external data with the customized data at the device.

23. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 21 , wherein the external data is selected from the group consisting of music, video, news and advertisements

24. The method for providing a customized digital yearbook of claim 21 , wherein the device is selected from the group consisting of a personal computer, a cellular phone, a media player, a networked media player, a networked television, a television with integrated optical disk player, a television with a media interface and an e-book.